The Young Victoria Movie Review

1/8/12 Period 6 The Young Victoria Directed by Jean-Marc Vallee Produced by Martin Scorsese, Graham King, and Sarah Ferguson Production date: December 18, 2009 Movie Length: 105 minutes In a gripping romantic tale, The Young Victoria is a movie based on the turbulent first years of Queen Victoria, her reign as Queen of England, and her ill-fated romance with Prince Albert. As a child she grew up very guarded and protected. Someone always had to taste her food before her and she couldn’t go up or down the stair without someone holding her hand, even at the age of 18.

She was always under the strict watch of her mother, and her father passed away when she was a baby. Her comptroller(the person in charge of supervising her financials), Sir John Conroy wanted William IV to die while Victoria was still under the age of 18, making her a minor and allowing him to become regent giving him the power behind the throne and control over Victoria. Victoria refuses to sign the regency over to him and when the king dies, who is her uncle, she becomes Queen of England. She begins being courted by two men Lord Melbourne, who was Prime Minister, and Prince Albert.

Prince Albert was told to seduce Victoria by his uncle King Leopold of Belgium because the king wanted to secure an alliance with Britain. Along the way Victoria and Albert learn that they have so much in common being teenagers under so much pressure. They begin writing letters back and forth to each other and become fond of each other. Lord Melbourne gives Victoria bad advice after he loses a vote in Parliament, which is to not replace her ladies in waiting. She invites Sir Robert Peel of the Tories to form a new government.

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He is honored but refuses to accept unless she replaces her ladies-in-waiting (who were all the wives of the friends of Lord Melbourne) with his. Victoria refuses to replace them, so Sir Peel turns down her invitation, letting Melbourne return to his place again as Prime Minister. This decision causes her to be very hated by the people. They shouted at her from outside the castle and even went as far as to throw a brink through a window where she was. As Victoria went through these rough times, the letters from Prince Albert regarding how concerned he was for her helped her cope.

He can’t resist being away from her anymore so he finds an excuse to travel to see her. He wants to propose to her but realizes that he can’t because as Queen she has to propose to him, which she does. They get married and the spectacle of the royal wedding wins over the public. He becomes upset at the lack of power that he has. He wants to be her equal concerning all matters. She feels like he wants control over her and it causes to them to get in an argument. During all the drama, there is also the relationship with Victoria and her mother crumbling. The King wanted to increase Victoria's income before he died but it was rejected by Conroy.

Conroy hits Victoria and becomes aggressive with her in front of her mother causing tension between her and her mother. Victoria was upset that her mother just stood by and let him handle her that way. So when she was crowned she banished her mother and Conroy to an apartment in the castle. Her mother was very regretful and wrote to her many times asking for her forgiveness. She missed her mother but couldn’t find the will to forgive her. She replaced her mother with her ladies in waiting, who were her personal servants to care for her, and she became very fond of all of them.

While on a carriage ride, and still not talking to each other, a man with a gun shoots at Victoria. Albert pushes her out of the way and takes the bullet. Luckily he survives and she realizes how much she loves him, which leads to their reconciliation. She gives him more power in the house and he fires Conroy for mishandling funds. And she places his desk right next to hers symbolizing that they are equal and also so that he can have a piece of his home with him. They later go on to have nine children, and their descendants are the royal families of Britain, Spain, Sweden, Norway and many other places.

They reigned together for 20 years then Albert died from typhoid fever when he was 42. To keep his memory alive, Victoria had his clothes laid out every day until she died at the age of 81. She was the longest reigning British monarch to this day! In my opinion the movie was amazing and told the story of Queen Victoria perfectly. From the title and movie poster I gathered that the movie would be about Queen Victoria as a teen. The movie was filmed 108 years after the death of Queen Victoria. Even though there was a huge time gap, the director said in an interview “I tried to keep the movie as historically accurate as possible. I think he was very successful! After I saw the movie I read articles online about the actual Queen Victoria and I felt like I was watching the movie all over again. I thought the movie was good because when I was watching, it didn’t feel like I was watching a boring history movie. I was intrigued by the historical storyline twisted with a backdrop of romance, mystery, and a bit of action. The movie was very well written. If the goal of the director was to tell a compelling tale of the Reign of Queen Victoria, then he achieved his goal without a doubt. I honestly can’t think of anything I would do to improve the movie.

I think that they captured who Victoria really was and fit as much as they possibly could into the 105 minutes of the movie. I would recommend the movie to anyone. I think the World History themes that are best illustrated in the movie are Empire Building, and Power ; Authority. The Empire building theme applies because this movie in a way is about Queen Victoria starting a new empire when she took the throne. She had to handle all of the government and she had no training. She appointed new people, for different political roles and began to build her own empire.

The theme Power and Authority is the more dominant theme. The whole movie is about her rise to power and how people tried to take it away from her. People such as Sir Convoy and Melbourne tried to take advantage of her and get her to sign her power over to them. But since she was very strong-willed she refused. She knew she had little training but she wanted to be the only one in power! The introduction of the movie was a voice over from Victoria while showing her as a Baby ; as a little girl. It shows how she first discovered that she was the sole heir to the throne. She had an uncle he didn’t have ny children. She talks about how her life was far from normal and how even though she lived in a castle, she felt trapped. The moral of the story was to stay true to yourself and to not let people control you. The movie did very well with the public and received many accolades. It earned a worldwide gross of $27,409,889. It also received 3 nominations for Oscars regarding the costumes and art design. It won an Oscar for best costume design. The movie was nominated for many British Awards. Emily Blunt was also nominated for Best Actress at the Golden Globes. The film was very sucessful!

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